The present invention relates generally to a press, and more particularly to a press for sugar beet and similar chips.
It is known to provide presses of this type wherein a rotary press spindle is mounted in a housing and the chips to be pressed and to have liquid extracted from them are admitted into the housing and are subjected to pressing by the rotating pressing spindle. Such devices have an inner tubular screen which, according to one teaching of the prior art, is a self-supporting element on which flow-retarding members are mounted that cooperate with feed vanes on the rotating press spindle to retard the flow of the beet chips or other chips through the press. The housing has a center portion, an upper portion and a lower portion; the center portion is supported on the lower portion which is suspended on devices that are distributed about its circumference and which, in turn, are mounted on a sole plate in the region of the plane of separation between the center portion and the upper portion of the housing, so that the housing is fully suspended. The upper portion of the housing is itself supported on the sole plate. The tubular screen is divided in transverse direction approximately midway between its ends, and each of the two parts of the screen that are thus obtained is divided in longitudinal direction.
This prior-art construction is complicated and expensive, especially because four separate shell portions are required for the tubular screen, two for each of the axial sections thereof. These are very difficult to install relative to the pressing spindle with the necessary accuracy. In this case it must be kept in mind that the screen should be spaced from the pressing spindle at all locations by approximately 1 mm, which is very difficult to do for screen sections. The outer jacket surrounding the screen is composed of a plurality of parts that are connected and it is not self-supporting. These parts also must be connected and adjusted relative to one another with great care, aside from requiring substantial care and time in their individual manufacture.